I read the title of this article in a post on Facebook this week, which had a lot in common with another text that I read for a project that I did. Both are very interesting texts that inspired me to write something about the moment in which we could be more productive in life; to be more specific in our youth.
Have you ever stopped to think about how you are always busy? How did things happen so that you could get to this point? No idea, right?
Basically, a big part of the Brazilian wage-earner learns that there are eight hours to work, eight hours to sleep and eight hours of free time. In practice, it’s not quite that way. The eight hours do not start from the moment you wake up early to go to work, wash your face and swallow something. The commuting time isn’t taken in consideration. In big urban centers it can be up to two hours in a chaotic traffic and who knows maybe inside a bus that has over limited the number of passengers. So, you end up sleeping about six hours, working exhaustedly and cannot recuperate this tiredness to take advantage of your free time.
But, why do things happen this way? In order to read a book that has been on a shelf for a long time, to practice a position of Kamasutra with your husband, to gleam nature and enjoy the company of people in your life in a good chat, free time is required. It’s what allows creativity and geniality to reveal itself, it’s what defines the health pace and what you’re going to do in the next years, or what your projects and expectations will be in the future and eventually defines your quality of life. Free time is very important, but why are we always busy with things much less decisive and relevant in life? How are you going to be able to develop a personal project if you don’t have free time to simply dream of something that could turn out to be your project?
When we aren’t working for someone and contributing to the capitalist and competitive cycle in which we live, we are giving very little benefit to the ones that are at the base of the social pyramid (by means, the majority of us). Instead we should be investing efforts in a personal project! Do we even have these projects? If not, why? Who is gaining from our occupation? Why do end for having become a generation so active, that truly speaking knows very little about what it means to engage actively? We have developed an active personality, that knows very little how to enjoy free time and prioritize it to the point of developing creatively what we really love to do and probably will bring us satisfaction, community benefits and eventually, pleasure in life. Would there be a way to stop this and save the future of this generation from trouble?
(Translator: Lara Barroso de Magalhães Mourão)
Who is Amana Greco?
Amana Maris Ribeiro Greco is from Divinópolis in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. She has a college degree in Education from the UFMG and a bachelor’s degree on Teaching Portuguese and English. Amana works with communication and marketing at BEM ESTAR do MENOR, is an English teacher and gives orientation to scientific works at the Language Master School of Idioms in Sabinopolis. She is also the mentor of the page: Virtual Laboratory. She is currently living in Sabinopolis. Her areas of interest are: Liguistics, travel, Social Justice and Cristianism.
